Includes 10 leading oncology/translational medicine and drug development experts to support clinical strategy for TR009 and TRIGR's immuno-modulatory bispecific antibody pipeline

IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / May 13, 2019 / TRIGR Therapeutics, Inc. ('TRIGR'), a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on the development of multi-targeted and immunomodulatory bispecific antibodies, announced today the formation of its global Clinical and Scientific Advisory Board (CSAB) comprising of 10 key appointments.

The CSAB will work closely with TRIGR's leadership team as it prepares to advance lead product candidate TR009 (ABL001, NOV1501), a dual-angiogenesis bispecific antibody, into global phase 1b/2 clinical trials in gastric, colorectal and other solid tumors expressing VEGF and DLL4 and to support IND enabling efforts for TRIGR's dual checkpoint and immune engaging bispecific antibody pipeline.

'We are honored to have convened this world-class group of gastrointestinal cancer and drug development leaders to our CSAB. Their clinical expertise and drug approval record will be invaluable to our strategy,' said George Uy, Founder and CEO of TRIGR. 'This group's deep experience in oncology drug development from initial discovery to late-stage clinical studies will provide support through this next stage of growth for our pipeline and Company.'

Dr. Edward Chu MD, M.M.S. (CSAB Chairman)is Professor of Medicine, Pharmacology and Chemical Biology, Chief of the Division of Hematology-Oncology and Deputy Director of the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center (HCC). Additionally, Dr. Chu serves as Co-Leader of HCC's Cancer Therapeutics and Phase I Program. Dr. Chu is a leading expert in the field of cancer therapeutics and cancer drug development, with a focus on clinical and translational research of gastrointestinal cancers. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO), American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), American Association for the Advancement of Science, and American College of Physicians. Dr. Chu also serves on the scientific advisory boards of several NCI-designated cancer centers, including Albert Einstein, Dartmouth, Columbia, Duke Cancer Institute, University of Southern California, and serves on the advisory board for the Taiwan National Cancer Institute.

Dr. Yung-Jue Bang, MD has served as Professor of Medical Oncology at the Seoul National University College of Medicine and Hospital since 1986. Dr. Bang has more than 30 years of experience in translational research and clinical trials, mainly focused on gastric cancer and phase I trials of new anticancer agents. He has also served as Director of the Cancer Research Institute, President of Biomedical Research Institute and the Director of Clinical Trials Center.

Professor Eric Van Cutsem, MD, PhD serves as Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Leuven (KULeuven) and Head of the Digestive Oncology Unit at the University Hospital Gasthuisberg in Leuven, Belgium. He became doctor honoris causa of the Medical University of Warsaw, Poland in June 2018. He is member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine since 2015 and President of the Belgian Foundation Against Cancer since October 2016. Professor Van Cutsem is a world-renowned expert in GI cancer and has lead multiple clinical, translational and pivotal studies in the space. Professor Van Cutsem has published more than 550 peer-reviewed articles. Prof Van Cutsem is/was a member of the scientific program committee and/or educational committee of ASCO, ASCO-GI cancers symposium, ESMO, UEG, and ECCO. He served for ESMO as executive board member from 2011 to 2013 and since 2014 is on the ESMO press committee. He was secretary from 2000 to 2003, chair of the EORTC-GI group from 2003 to 2007. He was board member of the EORTC from 2009 to 2015 and is president of European Society of Digestive Oncology (ESDO) Eric Van Cutsem has been the founder of and Chair of the Scientific Committee of the ESMO/World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer in Barcelona.

Dr. Cathy Eng, MD, FACP, FASCO, Professor,and Sophie Caroline Steves Distinguished Professorship for Cancer Research has served as faculty at MD Anderson for the past 16 years. Dr. Eng has assumed leadership positions devoted to clinical research and has focused on the development of phase I-III clinical trials using novel therapeutics for biomarker discovery and enhanced drug utilization in colorectal, appendiceal and anal cancer patients. Within MDACC, she is the Chairman of the Scientific Review, Clinical Research Committee and contact PI for the multidisciplinary NCI National Clinical Trials Network Lead Academic Participating Sites U10 and more recently the UG1 Grant (NCTN LAPS U10 Grant), an umbrella grant to conduct cancer research within all 4 clinical Network groups (The Alliance, ECOG-Acrin, NRG, and SWOG). Dr. Eng was a 2-term Chairman of the NCI Rectal-Anal Task Force, serves on ECOG and SWOG and is the newly elected Vice-Chair of the SWOG GI Committee. Dr. Eng has published in many peer reviewed journals including JCO, Lancet Oncology, Nature Review, Annals of Oncology, Cancer, and Annals of Surgical Oncology. Dr. Howard Hochster, MD is an internationally recognized leader in the development of cancer clinical trials, gastrointestinal oncology, and early-phase cancer drugs. Dr. Hochster, is a Distinguished Professor of Medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Prior to joining Rutgers, he was faculty at the Yale Cancer Center and the Yale School of Medicine, where he also served as team leader for the Gastrointestinal Cancers Program. Dr. Hochster served as a clinical program leader for the Gastrointestinal Cancers Program at Smilow Cancer Hospital. Dr. Hochster, whose most recent clinical trials work involves the investigation of checkpoint inhibitors in gastrointestinal cancers, has decades of clinical trial experience and has collaborated with national cooperative groups, as well as the National Cancer Institute.

Professor Jin Li, MD is a Professor at Tongji University Shanghai East Hospital and serves as the Dean of Department of Oncology of East Hospital and President of the Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology (CSCO) and member ASCO. Professor Li is a world expert in gastrointestinal cancer and cancer immunotherapy. He has participated in approximately 150 clinical trials for the treatment of various tumor types. Professor Li obtained his MD from Shanghai Second Military Medical University and continued his postdoctoral research at Yale University, engaging in cancer research of gene therapy and biological therapy. He has published more than 100 papers in prestigious journals, including PNAS, Clinical Cancer Research, Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, Anti-cancer Research, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lancet Oncology, and JAMA.

Dr. Patricia M. LoRusso, DO, is a leading expert on drug development. She is currently a Professor of Medicine at Yale University, Director of the Early Phase Clinical Trials Program and the Associate Director of Experimental Therapeutics at the Yale Cancer Center. Dr. LoRusso brings more than 25 years of expertise in medical oncology, drug development, and early phase clinical trials. Prior to her Yale appointment, Dr. LoRusso served in numerous leadership roles at Wayne State University's Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, most recently as Director of the Phase I Clinical Trials Program and of the Eisenberg Center for Experimental Therapeutics. Dr. LoRusso has served in numerous leadership roles. She has been a past co-chair of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program Investigational Drug Steering Committee, as well as a active member since inception. She also served on the board of directors and numerous scientific committees of the American Association for Cancer Research, the education and scientific committees of the ASCO, numerous peer-reviewed study sections, and NCI committees.

Dr. Jean-Pierre Bizzari, MD Dr. Bizzari is a world-renowned oncology expert with over 35 years of broad experience in oncology drug development. Dr. Bizzari served as Executive Vice President and Global Head of Oncology at Celgene Corporation, responsible for Celgene's clinical development and operations-statistics teams across the United States, Europe and Asia/Japan where he oversaw the development and approval of leading oncology products, including REVLIMID (lenalidomide), VIDAZA (azacitidine), ISTODAX (romidepsin) and ABRAXANE (nab-paclitaxel). In addition, he was chairman of Celgene's hematology oncology development committee and a member of the company's management committee. Prior to Celgene, Dr. Bizzari was the Vice President, Clinical Oncology Development for Sanofi-Aventis where he oversaw the approval of ELOXATIN (oxaliplatin), TAXOTERE (docetaxel) and ELITEK (rasburicase). Dr. Bizzari joined the pharmaceutical industry in 1983 as Head of Oncology at the Institut de Recherches Internationales SERVIER (France). Dr. Bizzari is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the French National Cancer Institute, and the European Organization of Research and Treatment of Cancer and Chairman of the New Drug Advisory Committee. Dr. Bizzari received his medical degree from the Nice Medical School and has trained at the Pitie-Salptrire Hospital in Paris, The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, and The McGill Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Research Centre (formerly the McGill Cancer Center) in Montreal, Canada.

Dr. Joanna Horobin M.B., Ch.B., is an accomplished drug developer and biotech leader with over 35 years of industry experience, primarily focused on the development of novel oncology agents. Dr. Horobin serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Idera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Previously, Dr. Horobin was the Chief Medical Officer of Verastem, Inc. From 2006 to 2012, she served as CEO of Syndax Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Horobin spent a year as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at MPM Capital and held several roles of increasing responsibility at global pharmaceutical corporations such as Rhne-Poulenc Rorer (now Sanofi) where she spearheaded the launch of the global Oncology business unit which included the commercial introduction of TAXOTERE (docetaxel) in breast cancer and CAMPTO/CAMPTOSAR (CPT11) for colorectal cancer. At Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Dr. Horobin also led a successful joint venture with Chugai to develop and launch GRANULOCYTE (lenograstim) across Europe. Prior, Joanna played significant leadership roles in the approvals of LOVENOX, CELECTOL, AUGMENTIN, TIMENTIN, BACTROBAN and RELAFEN/RELIFLEX. Dr. Horobin received her M.B. Ch.B. degrees (MD equivalent) from the University of Manchester, United Kingdom and gained membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners (MRCGP) and the Diploma in Pharmaceutical Medicine from the Royal Colleges of Medicine.

Dr. Ye Hua, MD, MPH, currently founder and CEO of BioNova Pharmaceuticals (Shanghai, China) has 20 years of global clinical development and new drug registration experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Most recently, Dr. Hua served as Senior VP and Head of Clinical Development and Regulatory Affairs at Hutchison MediPharm (Chi-Med), where he led over 30 Phase 1-3 clinical trials in oncology and immunology across China, the US and Australia, including the pivotal program for ELONATE (fruquintinib). Dr. Hua started his career in the US at Pharmacia & Upjohn in 1999 as a biostatistician (team leader in pivotal Phase 3 registration trial of Humira), then as a team leader/ clinical research physician at Novartis (RECLAST/ACLASTA, PREXIGE, ZOMETA, PROLEUKIN and CARDIOXANE in the US and EU), and most recently served as Senior Medical Director, Global Clinical Development at Celgene Corporation where he led global clinical teams for REVLIMID and POMALYST NDA/sNDA. Dr. Hua graduated from Fudan University Shanghai Medical College and obtained a Master Degree in cancer epidemiology at McGill University, Montreal Canada.

About TRIGR Therapeutics

TRIGR (www.TrigrRx.com) is an emerging biotechnology company in the field of next generation cancer therapies that was incorporated in April 2018 and managed by biopharmaceuticals industry veterans. TRIGR focuses on clinical development and commercialization of targeted and immuno-modulatory drugs with validated mechanism of action and novel formats for the US, European and Asian markets. The Company's pipeline includes a clinical stage dual-angiogenesis bispecific antibody program (TR009) and pre-clinical dual checkpoint and immune engaging bispecific antibodies.